My head jerked up. “Horus.”
“Anubis, but thanks.” He smirked.
“No, your brother! Horus! That’s his thing right? Setting souls free?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, but he can’t go with you.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Anubis sighed. “He would not be able to come back.”
“Why?” I wanted to stomp my foot.
Timber cupped my chin. “Because it would mean he no longer existed in this timeline. He would be stuck in yours.”
I nodded. “But to save you… would he do it?”
“Yes.” A voice sounded behind Timber. He quickly covered me with his body. “When you didn’t return, I got worried. Good to know her dress is already on the grass, brother.” Horus gave him a sad smile. “I heard enough to know what this will cost me. Brother, know that there is nothing I will not do for you. I cannot imagine what the old Horus would have said.”
Timber sighed. “He would have warned me of what would happen. He would have helped curse me in order to try to save me.”
“Yes, probably.”
“Why the change of heart?” Timber asked the same question I was going to.
“Because…” Horus’s eyes danced between me and Timber. “I’m so damn tired of this existence. Maybe in the future I’ll find happiness because there sure as hell isn’t any here.”
“You’ll be limited,” Timber pointed out.
“I’ll be more normal after hundreds of years of being superior. I think I’ll make it.” Horus winked at me. “Let’s grab your protectors before it’s too late, and for the love of the Creator help her get her dress back on.”
We moved quickly. I frowned. Did my dress look different? Yes… but why?
“Hurry,” urged Horus.
He was right. There was no time to contemplate the meaning of the change. Timber and Horus walked ahead of me, back into the temple where it looked like Alex was the prime entertainment.
Set was drunk on something; whether it was wine or whatever story Alex was telling, it was working.
“What now?” I whispered, mainly to myself.
“I’ll take care of it,” Timber said gruffly. Leaving us, he approached his father and tapped him quickly on the chest, Sure enough a blue soul was pulled halfway out. Part of it was black with holes and a slime that looked like it was spreading, infecting the rest of it.
Is that what Timber meant when he said, the baser gods let their other instincts take over?
“Anubis!” Set’s voice boomed. “What are you doing?”
“Saving her,” Timber rasped, pulling his hand away and leaving the soul half hanging from Set’s body.
“That won’t last long,” Tarek pointed out. “The soul will default back into his body.”
“You need minutes.” Anubis nodded toward us. “Go.”
“Wait.” I grabbed his hand. “What do you mean go? You’re coming, aren’t you?”
His smile was sad. “I exist already in that time, so no, I need to stay.”
Tears stung my eyes. “I’m not leaving you!”
“Yes.” Timber pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You are.”
“But—”
“Thank you,” his voice boomed, “For showing me even for a few minutes, what it feels like to be whole.” He turned his back on me. “Now go.”
“But—”
Tarek grabbed me by the arm, Horus grabbed the other, and then we were running down the palace stairs and jumping onto soldiers’ horses—ones who were conveniently on the ground with blood spewing from their mouths.
Horus got on mine with me and kicked his heels into the mare’s belly. We took off so fast I nearly fell off.
“Sorry.” He gritted his teeth. “We don’t have much time.”
“How do we get back?”
“Pray,” he shouted over the thundering hooves.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He hit the reins harder as the horses galloped outside the city walls. “You must pray.”
“And say what?” Was he insane?
“Ask to return to your time, to right a wrong, pray to the Creator. He has long since forgotten the sound of my voice.”
“But you’re a god.
“Still a creation,” he pointed out. “Hurry. Even now I can feel my father stir.”
“Okay.” Tears ran down my cheeks as the sand-filled wind whipped against my face. “Please, take us home, take us back, so Horus can save Timber, so we can right this wrong…” Panic hit me in the chest as the horse tripped. “Please, Creator, please!”
What was I even doing?
The sun was ahead, it was hot against my skin, too hot. I blinked slowly as it started to set and then like a final bow, it winked—everything went immediately dark, cold.
I woke up with a start and stared into Cassius’s sad eyes. They had turned completely white, and the room was chilled, frost clung to his face.
I was afraid to ask, but I had to. “Is Timber okay?”
“He’s improving… slightly.” Cassius looked down at the couch, and I followed his gaze.
Timber lay there, very still. His color was back, but the tattoo remained.
Trapped. My heart sank. He was still trapped. Even though I’d made a different choice.
Tarek, Alex, and Mason appeared to my left.
And then finally, Horus, looking every inch the god as he stared down at his brother and shook his head. “You idiot.”
Cassius’s eyebrows shot up, his gaze was deadly. “And who are you?”
“Horus, Prince of Light, and your only chance at saving that demon and restoring him.”
“He’s been restored, his soul that is.” Cassius pointed out.
“That’s the problem.” Horus moved to the couch and pressed a hand to Timber’s head. “You restored the cursed soul of a god. What did you think was going to happen? It’s been trying to break free, but it’s warring with the borrowed soul—the borrowed soul will continue to suck the life from the original until nothing is left but darkness—nothing is left but his demonic self.”
“Who is he again?” Ethan walked in and gave Horus a once over. “Is there a costume party nobody told me about?”
Horus let out a growl. “Careful, vampire, my bark is worse than your bite.”
I’d never seen Ethan react so violently as his fangs descended, eyes turning a bright shade of green.
“Horus!” My voice cracked. “Please, you have to help him.”
Horus nodded. “I’m going to try.” He pressed a massive hand to Timber’s chest. “Remember, brother, remember what you are—who you are, remember your calling.” He pressed both hands down. “I rebuke the borrowed soul in the name of the Creator. Be free!”
The house started to shake as the black tattoo slithered along Timber’s pale skin as if something from the inside was trying to come out.
“You can’t have him,” a female voice rasped.
Horus stiffened. “Neither can you.”
I looked around for the voice but saw nothing. The temperature in the room dropped as Cassius’s wings spread out, ready to fight, ready to impale whatever came at us.
“Fight it.” Horus encouraged his hand still on Timber’s chest. “You must choose. Don’t be like our father. Don’t let a sick soul take everything from you. Remember who you are, Prince of Darkness, Anubis, Keeper of Souls!”
Timber’s eyes burst open. They were pure gold, they were bright, and they were trained directly on me.
“Timber.” I reached for his hand and squeezed. “Anubis…”
With a roar, something black wrapped around Horus’s hand as he slowly pulled the darkness from Timber’s body, the soul had flecks of blue still on it, but the rest of it looked like it was rotting.
Horus jerked the rest of it free and held it out to Cassius. “Destroy it.”
Cassius took the black soul and crushed it with one hand. Black icicles fell to the ground and disappeared i
nto thin air.
Timber moaned as gold pulsed across his skin, right before my eyes I saw him become restored to the man I had kissed only minutes previous, the man who I saw in my dreams, the one who said he was my other half.
The love of my life.
My soulmate.
The Prince of Darkness.
Timber’s body convulsed and then as if jerking awake from a long night’s sleep, he blinked and sat up, his eyes locked on Horus first. “Brother? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Good to see you too. Missed you. It’s been what? A few thousand years? And thanks for saving my life, oh you’re welcome Anubis, all in a day’s work, also I’m trapped here now…”
“He’s never had good manners.” This from Alex who shot Timber an amused grin before winking over at me.
Nerves took over.
Would he remember past me and present me?
If we kissed in the garden was it in his memories now?
I had so many questions.
First and foremost, I just wanted to touch him, to feel his skin, to tell him… what? That I was in love with him? That I’d been in love with him for as long as I could remember? Only that I wasn’t a god so my memories were still somewhat fuzzy? How did one even begin that conversation?
“Stuck,” Timber repeated in a voice that was just slightly richer than before. “You’re stuck in this time?”
“Apparently.” Horus stood and then looked down at his clothes. “I imagine this would land me somewhere unpleasant?”
Mason winced. “You look like you belong at the Halloween store.”
“What’s Halloween?” Horus asked with genuine curiosity.
Alex laughed. “Ethan, show some fang. That right there, people really love vampires, they dress up as them. Ethan loves it, don’t you, boy?”
Ethan flipped him off and then gave Horus a helpless look. “This is going to be difficult for you.”
He shrugged. “I’m a god, I think I have it handled.”
“Limited,” Cassius pointed out. “And…” He stopped talking and then shared a look with Mason, who seemed to be in his own trance. “I think we should leave Kyra and Timber alone for a bit.”
Alex kicked the chair. “Can’t I just stay in the other room?”
Mason glared. “The last thing you need is to be around people who are going to be having all the…” He gulped. “Er, pinecones.”
“What fresh hell kind of time is this?” Horus grumbled under his breath.
Timber was still silent, staring at me, his chest heaving.
His blond hair was as short as it was before, but his eyes had changed to pure gold as he watched me, his skin seemed to have this pulsing awareness beneath the surface. I couldn’t tell if he was taller; he’d already been tall. He was still Timber, though he looked… content, whereas before he had seemed like he was constantly searching, grumbling, fighting.
“Time—” Cassius ushered everyone out. “—is a very fickle thing when you can exist outside of it.” He shared a look with Timber. “We’ve just altered it. Be watchful.”
The rest of the group followed him out of the house—Timber’s house, and still I stared at him, waiting for him to say something.
Finally, I sat down on the couch next to him and shrugged. “Do I call you Anubis or Timber?”
“Call me Prince of Darkness.” He said it with such a straight face that my jaw dropped. Had he had a personality transplant too? Was he going to be arrogant?
“I, uh…” I tucked my hair behind my ear at about the same time he burst out laughing. I glared and then threw a pillow at him.
Of course he caught it with one hand and placed it on the floor beside him. Then he whispered. “I remember a garden… and a beautiful woman saying she would save me, that this time she would save me.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “What happened after we left?”
He shook his head. “I remember fragments, my father raging, and that’s it, I’m sure it will come back to me, imagine a computer downloading thousands of years’ worth of memories that have been suppressed.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “That makes sense.” I stood and wrapped my arms around myself. “So you don’t remember much of… us?”
He stood, towering over me as he reached for my arm and jerked me against his massive chest. “The memories that are the most clear—all have to do with a certain Princess of Apollo. You, and only you, have the power to bring me to my knees.”
His kiss was soft.
I clung to his shirt and moaned into his mouth at about the same time he lifted me into the air and started walking. I broke the kiss. “Where are we going?”
“Making up for lost time,” he said gruffly walking into his master bedroom and slamming the door behind him.
TIMBER
I remembered everything—mainly, I remembered her. Choosing Kyra despite my brother’s protests, claiming her as my own before my father could get the chance, and being punished for our love.
We were given sixty days before my soul would be lost to hers, before the curse of the gods took over and completely obliterated me from the inside out.
I kissed her soundly again. The only problem with my memories was that I wished she was sharing them, but she had no idea. She had been reborn—she wasn’t a god; she didn’t know, and I did.
My love was all consuming.
My obsession bordering on dangerous.
And yet this human still looked at me like a science project, a pretty one she wasn’t sure how to experiment with.
I’d never in my life had to woo a woman.
And now that I finally had her, the one that I’d searched for, the one who had saved me and risked her life to do it—I would need to woo her again so she understood.
We were made for one another.
There was no coming back from this.
I cupped Kyra’s face. “I want you.”
Her eyes locked on mine with uncertainty. “I want you too, I just feel like I’m missing some giant piece of our story.”
“Let’s make a new story,” I rasped. “One in this time, together.”
A small smile formed across her lips “You mean one where I’m the bartender and you’re the cranky boss?”
“You’d be cranky too if you couldn’t feel, yet remembered what it was like to feel everything, to be less powerful but not know why.”
One of her dainty hands slid up my cheek. Her fingertips were like velvet. “Do you remember? Why you did it? Why you tried to borrow a soul?”
A weight settled against my chest. “The truth?”
“Please.”
“I thought I was stronger. I thought without my soul I would be the same. But instead, nothing satisfied me. The only way to find satisfaction was to devour human flesh and even then I was always empty, but I had flickers of a past life where I’d been powerful—full. So I went to the only person who could give me what I craved. By then I was already lost to what I used to be, completely sick but unable to die. I barely lasted a hundred years without you in my life. When the goddess offered an exchange, I knew exactly what I was doing, but if it meant one day I would feel again, it would be worth it. So I allowed her to give me a borrowed soul, not knowing that mine would be restored thousands of years later. She was the goddess of death, you know her as, Mania, one of the Roman goddesses. She takes on different forms, different faces, and since the gods were all but extinct, I knew she would give me what I wanted.”
Kyra sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I wrapped my arms around her body and pulled her close. “It could have been worse.”
She frowned. “I don’t see how?”
“I could have lost you.”
Her eyes flickered to my mouth. “You didn’t, I just wish…”
“What?”
“I wish that I remembered more… of us.”
“I know.” I felt helpless, something I was hoping would be a rarity. Then again, I did have p
ower, right? I would be limited, but maybe I could show her, maybe I had enough power to show her a glimpse. “I’m going to try something.”
“Okay.” She looked petrified.
I grinned. “It won’t hurt. It’s not like I’m biting you again.”
She gulped. “Yes. That.”
“You liked it.”
“Maybe.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t worry, I liked it enough for both of us,” I whispered, lowering my head to hers, I pressed a kiss to her parted lips then deepened it as I placed my right hand on her chest. She jumped and then relaxed as power surged through my fingertips.
I felt her soul.
Felt the stirring.
I turned my fingertips, drawing her soul from her body. It clung to my hand just like I remembered, wrapped its tentacles around my fingertips so tight that I winced.
“It’s your turn,” I said against her mouth. “To remember.”
I kissed her harder then, sliding my tongue into her mouth while holding her soul in the palm of my hand, letting it take whatever energy or memories it needed.
Kyra gasped and pulled away. “We were in the Great Hall.”
“Yes.” I felt my eyes flash with the memory, and my body burn.
“You, you tried to turn away and I…” She looked horrified. “I seduced you!”
“I was gladly seduced.”
“You tried so hard to do the right thing.” Tears filled her eyes. “And I just ignored it!”
“I told you not to touch me.” I kissed her again, tasted her. “It hurt my heart, it made my soul shake in my chest—and then you did. I was brought down by one touch, to my very knees.”
She trembled in my arms. “I was selfish.”
“You were terrified,” I corrected her. “My father was going to murder you.”
Kyra shook her head. “No we were going to get married and…”
“Murder. You still had the soul of a goddess thanks to your father. Trust me when I say he was going to use you to buy himself more time… innocent of body and soul.”
Darkest Sinner Page 14